Finished Rya

I finished my rya! Here it is enjoying the warm sunshine outdoors this morning.

P1190005

The yarns were all hand-dyed by me last July (2012) using woad from my garden and Queen Anne’s Lace from garden “weeds” and from scrubby places around town (e.g., under the powerlines and along the sides of Route 9 and Main St. here in Amherst). The blues are dyed with woad, the yellows are Queen Anne’s Lace, and the greens are Queen Anne’s Lace overdyed with woad. The mordant is aluminum sulfate. The yarns are single ply rug wool. Each knot is made with three strands of yarn. The warp is 8/4 unbleached linen.

This is my 100th post, and I feel very pleased to have made something so pretty to share on this occasion.

Re-Weaving the Rya

Thanks to a snow day on Friday February 8th, courtesy of winter storm Nemo, I got a lot of weaving done on my rya. I was well past the mid-way point by mid-day on Saturday. However, I decided I wasn’t satisfied with the transition from green to celedon to yellow at the center. In the process of redesigning this transition, I decided to make the whole design taller, i.e., more square. I wasn’t looking forward to all the extra work of re-weaving, but I decided I’d rather have a piece I was happy with. Continue reading “Re-Weaving the Rya” →

Rya Knots

Rya is a Swedish technique for making long-pile rugs or wall-hangings. Historically, as I understand it, these textiles were used as bed-covers. The pile side faced your body in bed, and the “back” side faced up. I am weaving this one to be a wall-hanging.

The knots don’t go all the way to the selvedge. Instead, there is a small area of plain weave at each selvedge called the argatch. Here’s how I weave it:

rightargatch Continue reading “Rya Knots” →

Rya Weaving

After about two years of planning a series of naturally dyed rya wall-hangings in my mind, I am finally weaving one! I am very excited about it. There are many steps involved. First, I dyed pounds and pounds of woolen yarn. You can read about the process in earlier posts: black walnut, Lady’s bedstraw, Queen Anne’s Lace and woad, and orange cosmos. This project features Queen Anne’s Lace and woad.

Then, I set up the warp. It is 8/4 natural linen from Webs,124 ends, a little shy of 21 inches wide in the reed, set at 6 ends per inch in a 12 dent reed, sleyed 1-0-1-0-1- etc.. When it’s done I expect it will be about 14 inches high. Continue reading “Rya Weaving” →